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Architecture of Transition and Production of Meaning Transition: Architects as Managers of Change Transition in a social sense is a change from one system into another. Globally, the modernist paradigm changed to the post-modern with the disappearance of central authorities, universal dogmas and foundational ethics. The post-modern world introduced fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy and insecurity. Architectural responses to these conditions occurred as a 'semantic nightmare' of the post-modern discourse and/or the attempted completion of 'the modern project'. Locally, in Croatia, transition occurred as a quantum leap from the Socialist, one-party, state-controlled market system, into a capitalist, parliamentary democratic, free-market system. In 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, disappeared the raison d'etre of the 'buffer zone', known as Yugoslavia. A Pandora's box of political nightmares was opened. Yugoslavia disintegrated into 5 new independent nation-states: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia- Herzegovinia, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The surprising national optimism and excitement upon which these states were formed quickly back-fired. The war, in the beginning of the 1990s, completely destroyed the Croatian economy, especially the tourist industry. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the mid-1990s, transformed Croatia into an enormous refugee camp. The compounded effects of war and transition of the political and economic system, in fact, placed Croatia amongst the levels of Third World countries. A corresponding cultural transition, returned Croatia to the romantic nationalist sentiments of the mid-19th century. The transitional field within the Croatian architectural profession of the 1990s was widened to surrealistic dimensions while a simultaneous narrowing of actual realizations occurred. In order to survive, architects had to fundamentally change their status and role within society. The architect was no longer a 'gentleman' with bow-tie and cigar waiting for a patron to develop canonical national institutions of historical importance. Randic-Turato are able to anticipate and transform this transitional atmosphere. An Architecture of Transition is a way of intervening in the new market conditions where the 'role assignments' are no longer grounded in the established state-regulated economy. The architect becomes an 'extra', a free-lance actor without a previously assigned role, without a script. Randic-Turato are transitional architects who have fully understood and accepted these realities without 'ontological disturbances' and professional nostalgia. In the free, non-regulated market, they use even the slightest opportunity for activity. Their work is widening the traditional field of the architectural profession, whereby Randic-Turato have become dynamic managers of change. Border Conditions The city of Rijeka represents the historical and conceptual background of Randic-Turato. Historically, geographically and conceptually, the city of Rijeka represents a border condition between sea and land, east and west, order and chaos, province and centre and the horizontality of its sea and the verticality of its mountains. Rijeka is a harbour city, where the port and its industry represent the 'urban' more significantly than the morphological organization of the city centre. Rijeka's skyline is dominated by the silhouette of numerous harbour cranes and social housing skyscrapers -- function and pragmatism dictates city form. Sasa Randic (1964) and Idis Turato (1965) were both born in Susak, the eastern quarter of Rijeka. Both come from 'architectural families', whereas Randic's father is an urban planner and Turato's father is an architect and grandfather was a builder. They completed primary and secondary school in Rijeka and studied architecture in Zagreb from mid-1980s to beginning of 1990s. Their education at the rchitecture Faculty at University of Zagreb further attests to the particular context upon which their foundation rests. The University of Zagreb never accepted post-modernism as a dominate direction: quite contrary, it sought 'the completion' of the modern movement. Education was based upon the concepts of the modernist tradition of the 1930s, when the so-called Zagreb School was an active part of the European Modernist scheme. During the 1980s, for example, students and professors would carefully study the work of Cedric Price rather than that of nearby Aldo Rossi. Paolo Portughesi's 1979 Venice Biennale, which showcased the early work of OMA, was congruent to the sensibilities of the Zagreb students. A New 'Modus Operandi' top Sasa Randic, similar to many other excellent students of his generation, not only received the solid grounding of the faculty, but also educated himself by an insatiable curiosity of the contemporary international architecture scene. In his exchange with the world, he was awarded a prize in a competition organized by RIBA Oasis competition 1989 for the re-design of Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse housing tower as a new typology for future housing. Idis Turato, as a secondary technical school student in Rijeka, often spent time in his father's library, which was full of books of Oscar Niemeyer and Richard Neutra. It was quickly became apparent that he was destined to continue the family business. He completed his studies in Zagreb as one of the best students of his generation and was awarded a prize in the Rotring and Ove Arup student competition for a 'house for a media lover.' His diploma work (1991) was for a villa in Crikvenica as a micro-version of OMA's La Villette strategy, where the different program are organized as linear strips and where the event is created as a perpendicular movement though different pprogrammatic fields. During their studies, Randic and Turato, together with Damir Rako, Toni Pokovic and Sasa Bradic formed the student group Ax5. The work of the group was nationally recognized within the 'salon of youth' of architecture in 1998 in Zagreb. The group dissolved after the members graduated in the beginning 1990s. From the fall of 1990, Randic studied at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam (a post graduate school of architecture as one of the students of the first 'heroic' generation in a conceptual environment created by Herman Hertzberger (founder and creator of the Institute) and Kenneth Frampton (history and theory chair). Randic spent 2 dynamic years together with a generation of outstanding Croatian and Slovenian young architects, including Pero Pulijz, Branimir Medic and Tadej Glazer. The phenomenon of the contribution and performance of the Croatian student at the Berlage is probably deserving of a separate monograph, however Randic and his comrades created (within Aldo van Eyck's orphanage) strategies and scenarios for the reconstruction for the troubled ex-Yugoslav region following the war. A very important element within the education environment of the Berlage was international competitions. Europan was a logical choice as a competition for the new housing typologies for young European architects. Randic and his partner Sanja Ipsic (a painter) were awarded the first prize for the site Sete, France. Following his diploma work, Turato realized the 'Prince' fashion boutique interior in Crikvenica and thereafter worked as a free-lance architect in Veneto, Italy. Upon the 1992 return of Randic from Amsterdam and Turato from Veneto, the Randic-Turato architectural office was established in Rijeka as the operational platform for architectural activities in a transitional environment. It was a strategic decision to establish the office in Rijeka; leaving 'the west' and returning to 'the homeland' was based upon possibilities to act within the completely changed conditions of the Croatian architectural market. The establishment their office in Rijeka was logical in terms of filling a gap in the transitional market -- where large state offices did not manage to transform themselves. Nonetheless, the waves upon which Randic-Turato began to sail were rough, disorientating and pulled by a strong under-current. To a certain extent, the seas they began to re-navigate were, in many of its aspects, surreal. Croatia, in the beginning of the 1990s, was a 'laboratory of transition' where the central authorities, universal dogmas and foundational ethics of socialism were replaced by a series of (unsuccessful) economic and cultural experiments embedded with new romantic nationalist values. Following the privatisation of state-owned companies, the so-called Croatian free market became, in fact, an oligarchical system of control where the entire market was in the hands of a number of ruling elite families. Croatia acquired a social and economic system which was very similar to the 'banana republics' of the Third World. Perhaps the only possible way to act in such an environment was to pragmatically accept the 'chaos' of transition (fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy and insecurity) while super-intelligently accommodating the context. Randic-Turato had to create a new system of values and a new 'modus operandi' for their architectural practice. The principles of their transitional 'manifesto': Don't Bother with the Future, Keep an Open Mind, Define the Circumstances, Work in a Group, Condense the Solution, Use Existing Elements and Dispose After Use, reveals an extra-intelligency that is necessary in order to practice architecture -- when it is still considered a conceptual discipline -- in the contemporary Croatian context. All difficulties aside, one should also recognize that such a context also offers advantages: to a certain degree, everything is possible; creation of the 'new' is compulsory; the dynamism makes for never 'boring' commissions. The Production of Meaning top Randic-Turato, An Architecture of Transition, has uniquely positioned itself. In their uninterrupted struggle for the 'production of meaning', Randic-Turato are simultaneously 'flying' as a cloud above the context and in daily contact with the context. The production of meaning is then reflected though the conceptualization of strategies in order to answer assignments and finally to realize their work. This so-called extra-intelligency from which Randic-Turato are creating their operational strategies is based upon sophisticated analytical research. This research in itself translates to the deconstruction of the process by which the project is evolving. Their analyses concentrate on the causes of changes in the context, which are defining the specificity of the place, rather than the superficial appearance of these changes. Merely understanding the physical context and the program is not anymore sufficient. The architect has to now convincingly act as the 'problem-solver' instead of merely the 'form-provider'. Randic-Turato's most intensive work occurs in the conceptual phase of their projects, when the investors and developers do not really now what they want to build and from where they are going to finance the eventual project. Within this environment of instability, Randic-Turato operate with a high degree of openness towards the ceaseless changes of the project's development. This tactic is possible only if one approaches the project without a stable model and hypothesis but much more with an anticipatory instinct for the development of the project. Randic-Turato, very correctly, emphasize that contemporary architectural practice has to develop special strategies for performing within three very different fields: virtual, legislative and constructional. Communication in each of these fields must be moderated according to the actors within the phasing of the project. The method Randic-Turato have developed to achieve this involves the simplification of the project to the level of its basic concept, which then can be successfully communicated within each of these fields. The operational engine for the success of the project is a successful communication of the concepts of the project. Randic-Turato Production, 1992 - 2000 top During the last 8 years, the Randic-Turato office has produced previously unfathomable quantities of work: 31 projects, 25 urban design studies/master plans and 19 . All of these works have been produced within an environment of a think-tank workshop. In the atmosphere of the workshop, the quality of the idea was much more important than the authorship of the idea. The group, workshop atmosphere is an aspect Randic no doubt carried with him from his days at the Berlage Institute. The critical adoption of the laboratory-like Berlage atmosphere to the Croatian environment required a shift from a conceptually-based and 'instant' project formulation to a pragmatically-based operational code -- which sought to maintain the unbearable beauty of initial ideas and concepts. A critical selection of the Randic-Turato production is presented here through three categories. First presented is a dynamic city model of Rijeka, where an intensive analysis of land-use became a preparatory document for the city's new masterplan. Within Croatian city planning practices, this model is unique because it dynamically links statistical data with graphical interpretations for the purposes of planning. The model not only shows Rijeka's actual 'datascape' through the graphic extrapolation of GIS statistical data, but also represents an extremely potential field for testing for future development strategies and scenarios. The choice of strategies to be employed in the future will depend on the changes of urban densities, programs and the city's changing demographic structures. The model allows manipulation with all of the data and it provides immediate 3D-visualization of the new situation. The city of Rijeka not only has gained a precise database but more importantly, a sort of virtual field for investigations of urban scenarios. The second category presented with the monographs is that of competitions and unrealised projects. Competitions are the vehicle from which Randic-Turato are constantly exercising architecture as a conceptual discipline and marking their development in comparison with other young architects throughout the world. It is interesting that the competitions are constantly running parallel to their daily activity of projects and urban plans in Croatia. The conceptual span of strategies for such fundamentally different projects is extreme but, at the same time, it produces valuable experience for action both circumstances. Projects for Europan are central to Randic-Turato's production and are used as a testing-ground for contemplation upon the new city through new types of housing. Megaforms and landforms, as hybrids between infrastructure and housing programs have consistently been their answers to the Europan brief. The Europan competition for the post-industrial periphery of Cartagena (Europan4), a Spanish city on the Mediterranean coast, is a solution where infrastructure is 'woven' into the basic housing patio units, creating a 'new nature'. This project creates an oasis for housing in the middle of a 'chaotic' periphery. A second entry for Europan4 in Almere, The Netherlands represents a slightly utopian attempt to link agricultural production with the production of the urban environment. Within the space of the Dutch polder, these two seemingly opposing human activities are merged in the creation of a new housing neighbourhood. Randic-Turato's entries for Europan as well as the competition for the redesign of Tessaloniki's periphery are conceptually condensed in an ideal proposal for 'Millennium City.' Here, megaforms are placed within the context of the open grid, where the grid itself is the result of the growth of the hybrid megaform. Within this second category of work are two unrealised projects that are indicative of the recent mis-understandings in a Croatian economic and cultural environment. It was almost impossible for architecture to engage and answer these controversies Tese are the projects for the World Trade Centre in Rijeka and the project for the Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb. The project for the World Trade Centre (1992) was the most important project of the city if Rijeka in the early 1990s. The project radiated optimism of post-war sentiments through its size (80,000 m2) and program. The mayor of the city had the vision that the workers from the abandoned Socialist factories would become the brokers in the World Trade Center and initiate a basis for the new economy of the city. Within such an astonishing vision, the architectural and urban aspects of the project were almost secondary. Nevertheless, Randic-Turato's project revealed the power a super-hybrid upon the urban reality of the city. The design is based on strong overlaps of infrastructure (new road) and the programs of the building (congress centre, hotel and commercial spaces). Today, the abandoned enormous site excavation stands witness the impotence of architecture within transitional times when it is almost impossible to discuss and to design meaningful solutions. The competition entry for the Museum of Modern Arts in Zagreb of 1999 is, in terms of design, is the most controversial project of Randic-Turato. On the one hand it represents a very pragmatic answer to the brief and on the other hand, it expresses tendencies for a critical debate with the brief, site, program and geriatric jury. The elevation of the museum, which in a grotesque way literally reflects the post-modern monster of the headquarters of INA, clearly questions the possibilities of architecture within the non-sensible conditions of the competition. The design contains a double-meaning; it is clearly affirmative towards its architectural qualities, but also it is an ironic and sarcastic comment on the initiative to build the museum on Zagreb's 'Champ Elycees', as it was named by one of the jury members. It is completely obvious that nothing in the league with the Champ Elycees to be realized and that, unfortunately, Zagreb will not receive a new museum in the near future. Regardless, in its solidity, the Randic-Turato entry raises fundamental questions concerning the possibilities of architecture in transitional environments. The essay by Darko Glavan, about the 20th cultural environment of Rijeka, emphasizes the city's multi-layered and cosmopolitan character. His contribution affirms that there is not innovation without tradition and that it is virtually impossible to erase a historical cultural production in the time of transition. However, the fundamentally changed cultural context of Rijeka in the early 1990s is the space in which Randic-Turato operate. Almost all of their realized works indicate, to different degrees, the 'impossibilities of architecture' of Croatia in the 1990s. What is positive is the experience which the office gained through the building process, through the exchange with clients, investors and politicians all of which is a necessary accumulation of knowledge for future activities. The first realized work was the reconstruction of a building on Rijeka's medieval defence system on Supilova Street. This building was very important in terms of the media promotion that it gave Randic-Turato. Although the project had to work within a series of restrictions by preservationists, Randic-Turato managed to reveal the modern aspect of the project totally belonging to the spirit of the 1990s. The image of their 'upside-down roof' became a landmark in Rijeka as well as a 'trademark' image for the office. Thereconstruction of the medieval tower in Lovran (Istria) was completed in 1999. It was transformed into a gallery and workshop for the Australian (of Croatian origin) painter, Charles Bilich -- a slightly controversial figure of the contemporary global art market. Bilich, perhaps in the most positive light, pictures the taste of Croatia's new ruling elite. Randic-Turato's solution -- considering the medieval structure of the tower and Bilich's paintings -- was total and absolute minimalism. A series of single family detached houses attest to their skill in spatial articulation as well as the particular conditions in which Croatian architects operate. In Volosko, the client bought a piece of property that included an illegal, half-constructed structure. Randic-Turato ingeniously transformed something totally illegal into a legal residence, that eventually became an office. Despite the bizarre circumstances, the house (office) ultimately became architecturally interesting. It is conceptually premised upon a magnificent view on the Bay of Kvarner and the connection between terraces and interior spaces pivots upon this view. In Matulji, another house, in spite of the start of the construction process in 1993, is unfortunately incomplete. The owner lost his main income after the secession of war operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The project is an clever interpretation of the building rules, which demand pitched roofs and the employment of regional materials. Randic-Turato managed to deconstruct these rules and create an object of unique interior dynamism with a superior external appearance. Again the central theme is the view towards the Bay of Kvarner and the relation between the interior spaces and exterior terraces. The single-family house, Pavlak (still a project at the moment) appears to have a 'Scandinavian' modesty, revealing the possibilities of architecture when the budget and the program are both minimal. Another project that has yet to be realized is the Maldost office building on the main pedestrian street of Rijeka. Once again, Randic-Turato are working in the city center in collaboration with a historic preservationist (Hrvoje Giaconi), but this time on reconstruction of the Baroque palace. In spite of Giaconi being one of the most avant-garde preservationists, his conditions strictly protect the Baroque base of the object and demand that new upper floors should follow the pattern of the window openings of the base. Nonetheless, within these strict conditions, the project promises a quite modern office building with extremely sophisticated aluminum façade elevations. When the building is realized, it should become a standard for new architecture in a historical context. The final project, is no doubt the most spectacular built work of Randic-Turato to date. As a driver approaching Rijeka from the direction of Trieste, one will recognize a complex of gas stations linked by a pedestrian bridge. The complex has been named, the door of the Adriatic, whereas this site allows passengers the first view towards the Adriatic Sea. What is truly impressive is the construction of the bridge and its appearance in the Croatian landscape. The construction ideally overlaps with the phenomenal natural environment and at the same time is completely alien to everything one could see in the environment while travelling to Rijeka. The tectonic intelligence of the construction of ellipsoid steel frames and the steel mesh presents the contribution by the member of the design team, (first name) Sabljak. The bridge and its immediate surroundings, with the views on the Bay of Kvarner and the highway, indicates a new type of optimism that Randic-Turato are able to implement. Within a transition, Randic-Turato are generating endless strategies and scenarios for activity. Their work is a link with Rijeka's cultural and architectural production of the last century as well as anticipating and embracing the nature of a transitional context. The production of meaning, as the premise of existence and operation of the office, has to transform in the future into the production of urban and architectural culture on the regional level. In spite of everything, Randic-Turato possess the energy for that task. This essay is only for research purposes. If used, be sure to cite it properly! |
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